Mark Meadows to Newsmax: 'Dr. Fauci Needs to Come Clean'

Dr. Anthony Fauci's responses to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Tuesday are a "bureaucratic two step" to deflect from talk of a cover-up of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and "Dr. Fauci needs to come clean," according to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Newsmax.

"This was Dr. Fauci going on the offense to try to suggest that Dr. Rand Paul has some kind of ulterior motive, and I'll tell you the motive is very clear: Dr. Fauci needs to come clean," Meadows told Tuesday's "Stinchfield." "The only thing consistent about his rhetoric is the inconsistency of it, and we've seen that over and over and over again.

"The bureaucratic – you know, it's not a Texas two-step – it's a bureaucratic two-step where they go one way and go the other and try to present a different picture from what's actually happening."

Meadows, who was former President Donald Trump's chief of staff when Fauci was advising Trump at the start of the pandemic, said Fauci is feeling "protected" by President Joe Biden now.

"They believe that they're protected by Joe Biden's administration," Meadows told host Grant Stinchfield. "And, quite frankly, we need to make sure that there's a real investigation and we hold China accountable for this virus that obviously has its genesis in the Wuhan lab."

Fauci alleged Paul "kindles the crazies" as he told the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday about death threats against him, while Stinchfield – and Paul in televised interviews Tuesday – noted Republicans did not allege the same when a supporter for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shot Republicans at a congressional baseball practice.

"We can condemn any kinds of threats that come, whether they're against Dr. Fauci or Steve Scalise or anybody else," Meadows was sure to note.

But Meadows said Fauci's testimony to Paul and other concerned Republicans during the hearing Tuesday was not centered on "the truth" about the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins.

"It's not a good day for Dr. Fauci and, quite frankly, it's not a good day for getting to the truth, because Dr. Fauci continues to have the line that they had nothing to do with it," Meadows added.

Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, are calling for a hearing on the COVID-19 pandemic and documents tied to Fauci, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, other government officials, and scientists tied to them about the crafting of narratives on the COVID-19 science.

"It's not only these emails that are troubling, it's the sequence of when that happened, because if you go back all the way to February of 2020, there was this rapid-fire phone calls – when some of those documents appeared – there was this rapid fire back and forth, saying what? 'We've got to get together,'" Meadows said.

The Nature science journal from a scientist who questioned the plausibility of COVID-19 occurring naturally "actually appears to have been forwarded to Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci so that they could edit it and review it," according to Meadows.

"So, you know, shazam, after four days, the very people that said that they thought that this did not occur naturally all of a sudden did a reverse, you know, position and changed it," Meadows said.

"I can tell you it is important that the American people demand the hearing that James Comer and Jim Jordan have requested, but if it doesn't happen under Democrat leadership, I can tell you, it will definitely happen when the gavel gets passed to a Republican."

Democrats hold the majority in the House and Senate and they dictate the chairman of committees, deciding the balance of those seats and what issues are presented to the American people and for oversight in Congress.

Meadows has first-hand experience of partisan oversight. The Jan. 6 Select Committee subpoenaed him on personal communications, including private text messages with lawmakers, and leaked those text messages in a hearing in which they voted 9-0 to recommend the House hold him in contempt of Congress for a supposed lack of participation in an oversight investigation.

Meadows argued the submission of the private text messages, then leaked to pursue a criminal charge of contempt against him, showed his willful participation.

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